Santoryu Kenshi
by LZW
Summary: <html><head></head>Zoro ends up in the SAO world and is sent to try and beat the dungeon under Aincrad by Kayaba. He is given a chance to help the other players to escape SAO, will he help them? Or will he go back to his captain ignoring the pleas of the people still trapped? OP Zoro.</html>
1. Chapter 1

A/N : Takes place after what I think would happen if Zoro lost to Kuma to let everyone escape again after he gets powered up after timeskip . Humor me on how Zoro went into the SAO world, it was either this or he gets a mysterious letter / Mihawk sends him there to train more or he just poofs there. Warning : Super OP Zoro.

'Thought'

"Speech"

**Sword Technique/Special Item/Stats**

* * *

><p>As Zoro flew threw the air, a strange ripple in the space time continuum opened up and Zoro flew into the world of SAO just as the Beta Test was about to end.<p>

"Hmm, somehow a 1001th player has entered the Beta Test just before it ended and I can't remove him or shutdown the server. Very well, I shall let you continue to play my game, Roronoa Zoro."

'I might as well meet him and give him the proper introduction.'

"Link Start! System Login ID : GameMaster ."

"Lets see now, System Command : Teleport Player Here : Roronoa Zoro . "

In a flash of blue light, Zoro appeared in front of Kayaba, with his health bar in the low red.

"Wow he's barely hanging on here, won't be good to let him die now, the safety has been disabled. System Command : Heal Player : Roronoa Zoro ."

His facial features relaxed as he was brought back to max health.

"Lets see his stats… What!"

* * *

><p><strong>Level : 500 (Shown : 35)<strong>

**Stats :**

**Strength : 1,000 (Shown : 100)**

**Agility : 1,000 (Shown : 100)**

**Dexterity : 1,000 (Shown : 100)**

**Health : 50,000 (Shown : 1000)**

**Stamina : 10,000 (Shown : 500)**

**Skills : **

**Sprint : Completed**

**Searching : Completed**

**-Night Vision : Completed**

**-Tracking : Completed**

**Acrobatics : Completed**

**Extended Weight Limit : Completed**

**Extended Weight Limit 2 : Completed ( Unique Skill )**

**Equipment Appraisal : Completed**

**Emergency Recovery : Completed**

**Battle Healing : Completed**

**Cooking : Completed**

**Meditation : Completed**

**Parry : Completed**

**Tough Skin : Completed (Unique Skill)**

**Mutoryu : Completed (Martial Arts)**

**Ittoryu : Completed (Katana)**

**Nitoryu : Completed (Dual Blades)**

**Santoryu : Completed (Unique Skill)**

**Kyutoryu : Completed (Unique Skill)**

**Kitsunebi-ryu : Completed (Unique Skill)**

**Haki : Completed (Unique Skill)**

**-Kenbunshoku Haki : Completed (Unique Skill)**

**-Busoshoku Haki : Completed (Unique Skill)**

**Penalties :**

**Big Eater**

**-Must eat and drink in large quantities.**

**Armorless**

**-Player cannot wear armor.**

**Orientation failure**

**-Player cannot use map.**

**Hidden Strength**

**-Player's true strength is not publicly shown.**

**Cursed Blade**

**-Player will suffer a horrible death.**

**Inventory :**

**Meito Wado Ichimonji ( Undroppable )**

**Sandai Kitetsu ( Undroppable )**

**Meito Shusui ( Undroppable )**

* * *

><p>'Well there hasn't been a security breach but this is not supposed to happen. I'll let it slide, it'll make it more fun to watch, if he starts to clear bosses too early I can just imprison him or something. Perhaps I should speak with him first.'<p>

As if on queue, Zoro awoke.

"What happened? Where am I? Who are you?"

"My name is Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of this game."

"Game? What game? Nevermind, I need to go back and meet up with Luffy!"

"Luffy? You don't mean Monkey D. Luffy do you?"

"Yea, you know him?"

'It would appear that Roronoa Zoro has somehow crossed from the world of the popular anime One Piece into the world of the game Sword Art Online here, most interesting.'

"You have been sent into another world, Zoro, one much more different than the one you know. Only I can let you out but only if you complete all a series of trials. The first trial will be to defeat all 100 bosses below this steel castle, when that is achieved, I will come to you to inform you of your next trial. You should receive something to help you understand this new world in a moment. Another 10,000 people will be joining you soon."

With that, Kayaba logged out in a flash of blue light.

"Wait a minute explain yourself!"

**Item Added : Guide To New World For Roronoa Zoro**

A book then suddenly materializes in a flash of blue light in Zoro's hand.

"Huh? Whats this?"

'Raise your right hand then pretend to pull a switch downward.'

Zoro did as it said and the interface opened up.

"What the heck?"

'Look around the interface and for anything else consult the the Help button.'

'Guess there's nothing else to do now but try to familiarize myself with this place.'

* * *

><p>One week later.<p>

"Yosh! Its time to go into this dungeon thing."

"Wow there sure is a huge difference between up there and down here, its all black and dull."

'Better get started!'

And so Zoro started walking. Soon the sounds of a frog army could be heard reverberating through the dungeon passageways.

"Huh?"

Behind him Zoro saw an army of over 200 Scavenger Toads hopping towards him.

"What's with all these frogs?!"

Zoro drew Shusui and got ready to fight off the frogs.

"**Ittoryu : Sanjuroku Pound Ho!"**

And sound of frogs being killed and pixelated follow after the wave of compressed air cut through the hallway.

"Tch, these things are weak."

Zoro collected the drops and head on his way, only to find even more Scavenger Toads around every corner.

'These things are everywhere, its gonna take a while to find the boss room.'

* * *

><p>On the day of game release, Zoro found himself in a hallway with a small room containing what looked like a rock. The walls suddenly change and the area changes to a violet blue colour.<p>

"Whats happening?"

And with a clash of steel, Zoro's three swords are quickly drawn to block the giant scythe of a gigantic reaper like monster. Zoro repelled the beast with his swords and jumped back a few feet to get a good look at what he was fighting. The monster's name hovered above it head: '**The Fatal Scythe'**

"Looks like the reaper himself has come to get me, well bring it on!"

Zoro readied his stance and prepares to fight it, the boss immediately attacks Zoro with a sidewards slash but Zoro jumps onto the scythe mid slash and jumps off it towards the boss' head.

"**Oni Giri!"**

The fatal scythe roars out in pain as its health bar immediately goes down to the red zone from Zoro's incredible attack and it switches attack patterns. It raises it arms to its sides and hundreds of miniature scythes spawn behind it and are hurled towards Zoro who retreated back to his original position. Zoro uses his three swords to block the scythes but he doesn't get them all and one manages to injure his left shin.

"Dammit, I need to take him down quick, that one scythe took off 1000hp. This thing ain't joking around. Those frogs were nothing compared to this thing."

Zoro kept his other two swords and decided to take the boss head on with Shusui, with a running start Zoro runs towards the boss then he leaps, targeting his torso area, barely dodging the main scythe as it slashes just where he had been a few seconds ago.

"**Ittoryu : Hiryu-Kaen!'**

The strike cuts cleanly through the fatal scythe and it is engulfed in azure flames, its health bar dwindles down to and it pixelates, the room returning to the way it was and its drops given to Zoro. Zoro headed towards the room he saw earlier while examining his reward and found that he had dropped something called a **Bypass Point **and a Trophy : **The Fatal Scythe's Scythe**. As Zoro enters the room, a blue light starts to emanate from the rock and a virtual button appears. Zoro pushes the button and in a flash of blue light, Kayaba appears in front of him.

"Ah, you finally completed the first floor, funny I expected you to finish it much faster than this. Give me a moment here while I check what took you so long."

Kayaba opened the map of recording Zoro's progress of this floor and smirked when he realized what took Zoro so long.

"**Orientation Failure** wasn't just for show, the boss room was literally the last part of the floor you reached and you somehow went back to the start after reaching so far into the dungeon. No matter, what matters is that you are here now, if I am correct you would have received a **Bypass Point **from the boss right?"

"You mean this thing?"

An aqua coloured orb materialized in Zoro's palm.

"Yes that, now each boss drops one and as you get more of these, you unlock more abilities and boosts. You can select which you want to have activated at these terminals here, at the end when you get the last **Bypass Point**, you will have a choice to either help free whatever remain of the other 10,000 people who are trapped in this world or be free yourself. You have another 99 floors to think about it."

Kayaba faced the terminal and opened up an interface and drags it for Zoro to see.

"Now you have a choice, with one **Bypass Point** you have unlocked your first system bypass. For now you have the choice between **5% More Dmg Dealt **and **5% Less Dmg Received**."

"I'll take the less damage received then."

"Right ,now, there are 9 more system bypasses you can get. There are at 5, 15, 25, 35, 50, 65, 80, 99 and 100 **Bypass Points**. There is a terminal identical to this on every floor but I will appear on the floors with system bypasses to tell you about them. You can get to the next floor by standing on the terminal. O and here, catch!"

Kayaba throws a jug towards Zoro, he catches and examines it.

'**Endless Sake Bottle'**

Zoro took a swig of it and jumped onto the terminal.

"Ah thats some quality sake. Right, see you on floor 5 then I suppose."

With that, Zoro teleported off to the next floor.

* * *

><p>AN : Review, it encourages me to write!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Some of the technique translations may not be accurate as I just used google translate so please bare with it. It will be a fight intensive chapter this time. Sorry about the timeskip.

* * *

><p>Time passed quickly as Zoro and the clearing group advanced on their floors. The clearing group had just entered the 74th floor, ready to find the boss room with Asuna, Kirito ventured forth. Zoro had just finished the 99th floor and was choosing his <strong>System<strong> **Bypass**.

"Well Zoro its been about two years since you've been here. I think your ready for this, with all your new techniques and **Bypasses** you should be alright with this final boss. As usual you want the take less damage **Bypass** I assume?"

"Yeah, its been a fun two years, I have become stronger, but not strong enough."

"I should give you a heads up, the final boss should be well known to you, its **Asura**. I changed it specifically for you so there will be no maze. It will be the ultimate test for you Zoro. Now go and make me proud, finish the game."

Zoro jumped up onto the pedestal and took a swig of his **Endless Sake Bottle**.

"Its gonna be a fun fight then. I've decided," He had a distant look in his eyes with a smirk on his face as he said it "I'm gonna help the other guys get out, my captain would've done the same anyway..."

Deep in thought, Zoro teleported off to the next floor.

'Luffy, how are you holding out? You can't go off and be the pirate king without me seeing it you reckless idiot.'

* * *

><p>Zoro found himself in a huge coliseum the size of a city, and in front of him stood <strong>Asura<strong>. It was bigger than the size of Oars back on Thriller Bark, greatly resembling a great Daibutsu with three heads and six arms. It was hovering above the ground with its legs folded and its eyes closed.. In each of its six arms, it held a massive sword. Above it, its name was shown with ten health bars. The swords swords were similar to a Scimitar, only they were much longer and more curved.

Zoro drew his three katanas and activated his version of Asura.

"**Kiki Kyutoryu: Asura"**

Zoro's four new arms and two new heads held copies of his swords. Asura rushed forward with its six swords for an opening attack, Zoro used all his nine katanas to block the blow. The swords clashed and a shock wave was created, causing a small crater in the ground. Zoro was being slowly pushed back as Asura pressed forward its six swords. Zoro could only watch as he was slowly overwhelmed by the strength Asura possesed.

He jumped back to try and catch his breath, Asura decided to then change tactics, it pulled its swords back and used two of them to pincer zoro's sides. A third was sent for the top of Zoro. Zoro used three of his swords to block all the attacks. Asura then used two more of his arms to attack Zoro diagonally in between the swords at the sides and the top. Seeing it coming Zoro had no other choice but to move one sword from each side to defend the blow.

Zoro was slowly being squashed as the five swords continued to push against his. Unfortunately for Zoro, Asura still had one more sword free. Asura used the sixth sword to horizontally press on the sword directly on top of Zoro. Zoro groaned as the force his head had to take was multiplied. With no other option left, Zoro was forced to use a technique that drained him of his stamina greatly just to survive.

"**Kyutoryu: Nisensanbyakuyonju Pound Ho!" **(2340 Pound Cannon!)

Each of Zoro's nine blades released a blast of force at the swords of Asura. Using the time that the swords were repelled, Zoro jumped back panting. One of the blasts strayed and hit Asura's face, Asura's first health bar went down by about 1% .The technique had used up 35% of his stamina. He had barely survived Asura's second attack at a high cost. The difficulty of this level was much harder than the previous boss, "**The Fan Blader"**. It was a massive propellor that could shoot out its blades that had a homing effect. It had taken Zoro just some effort to defeat, but Asura had as easy. Even one of his most powerful techniques had only barely repelled Asura's blades.

He was backed up into a corner, he took a swig of his **Endless Sake Bottle** to replenish his stamina to the maximum and ran trying to think of a way to get through Asura's defense. As he ran, he was constantly seen by either one of Asura's three heads. He had to somehow get behind Asura to deal any kind of damage without having to go through the massive swords.

He barely had time to finish his train of thought before Asura started fanning out its swords horizontally to cut at Zoro's feet, forcing him to jump to avoid the slashes while running. Having enough of this, Zoro landed on one of the swords and ran up it while hastily launching '360 Pound Cannons' at Asura. Asura simply tilted the sword 90 degrees and Zoro was forced to jump off before he slipped off the blade, only to be cut by one of Asura's other blades. He took a look at Asura's life bar and saw that he only managed to reduce it to about 97%.

"What is with this thing, the amount of health it has is insane, all those '360 Pound Cannons' wore me out but it barely scratched Asura. Guess there's only one way to deal with this thing."

Zoro took another swig of sake as he checked his health, it was at about 90%. Zoro decided to change tactics as Asura went for another pincer attack on Zoro. This time, instead of blocking the blades, Zoro decided to use all his swords to focus on attacking one of the swords until it broke. He jumped out of the way and quickly continued to attack at the weak spots of Asura's first blade. He had no idea how long it would take for one of the boss' swords to break but it was the only choice he had left as his attacks did minimal damage to Asura, whereas Asura's did a lot to him.

Asura soon changed his tactics and went back to cutting at Zoro's feet. Zoro now jumped up above the blades and then used his katanas to cut at the blade as it passed below him, damaging it slightly. After about ten minutes of alternating attack patterns, Zoro finally landed the final hit on Asura's first sword. It was split into two and Zoro, panting heavily from the onslaught of attacks he had to dish out to break the blade, ran to the end of the coliseum to catch his breath and snack on some 'Roasted Demonic Chicken Meat'.

Asura let out a terrifying roar as it discarded the broken sword and reached up and grabbed it tenth health bar. The health bar transformed into a more terrifying version of the sword that Zoro had destroyed. It was now blood red and its handle was on fire.

'So it loses a health bar for each sword I break, I guess thats its weakness.'

Now that it was down a healthbar, Asura changed tactics.

With its six swords, it now uses them to aim at Zoro directly, going straight for him in order. Zoro dodged the first blade and started running, only to have the other five land just right behind him one by one. Even stopping for a moment would prove to be fatal. He had to find a way to damage one of the remaining five blades without getting cut.

Zoro continued to run around Asura and started to hurl '360 Pound Cannons' at the blades behind him. They slowly took damage until Asura changed attacks. Now all six blades, three at each side pincered Zoro and forced him to a halt. Overwhelmed by the force of the six blades, Zoro once again had to use another exhausting technique.

"**Kyutoryu: San Gorilla, Roku Gorilla!" **(Three Gorilla, Six Gorilla!)

With his strengthened arms, Zoro managed to push back the blades but the technique drained his stamina by 1% every 5 seconds. Asura changed back to its earlier tactic and again started to use its blade to attack Zoro. After running for a little while, Zoro thought of an idea. He stood in stance and waited for one of the blades to come for him. He used three swords at the top to block the strike and his six swords at the side to barrage the sword with attacks whittling down its durability with his strengthen strikes. As the second blade began to come down on the first, Zoro used the six swords to help the first three to push off the blade.

After dodging the second blade, Zoro resumed running and launching '360 Pound Cannons' at the blades behind him. When Asura's swords finally rotated back to the one that Zoro had damaged greatly, Zoro used one of his newer techniques in an attempt to destroy the blade.

"**Ittoryu: Sansenrokbyaku Pound Ho!" **(3600 Pound Cannon)

With this final attack, the blade could withstand no more as too, broke. Asura again reached up and pulled its ninth health bar this time. This time the blade was different from the first, it was cold blue instead of red and the handle was ablaze with an azure flame. Zoro took this time to disengage his 'Six Gorilla' and replenish his stamina with some herbs he had found throughout the dungeon as they worked quicker than the sake. He took a look at Asura's first health bar and saw that his attacks had brought it down to about 94% since he was not really aiming for Asura but rather its swords.

With another sword came another attack pattern from the boss. Now with its two newer swords, Asura once more changed its attack pattern and this time crossed the flaming blade and a purple fire engulfed both the blades. Asura aimed the blades up and multiple purple balls of fire shot up into the sky. Zoro dodged the fireballs skillfully but what surprised him was that at where the fireballs landed, little imp like creatures were created, all surrounded by blueviolet flames wielding two distorted looking daggers. The name above them,'**Hell-Spawn Imp'** seemed to suit them nicely.

With the creatures spawned, Zoro now had to deal with the Imps and Asura's blades at the same time. In order to rid himself of any distractions, Zoro decided to focus on the Imps first, he was quickly overwhelmed by the Imps and had to strain himself to keep up with blocking their barrage of attacks. They agilely lept and spun with their daggers in attempts to strike Zoro. While distracted by the vast numbers of Imps, Zoro had neglected Asura and was struck cleanly on the shoulder by one of Asura's four remaining original swords and had to use all his strength to remove it from his shoulder before retreating to a safer area to heal up.

The attack had heavily damaged Zoro and was left with 60% of his health, he had to use up some of the health potions that some of the dungeon monsters had dropped to heal himself and replenish his heavily expended stamina. Staying in his Asura state was heavily taxing on his stamina and had to continuously replenish it to continue staying in his Asura form. The Imps had largely covered the entire coliseum and Zoro had resigned himself that he had to focus on Asura as there seemed to be countless of them.

Zoro ran back into the fight and slashed away any Imps in his way as he made his way to focus on Asura's swords again. When he was within range of Asura's blades, he shot out three '1080 Pound Cannons' at the middle left blade, two connected but the third strayed and collided with a group of unfortunate Imps. Asura, used the flat of its blades to launch several Imps at Zoro. With this many Imps surrounding him, the heat from their flames making him sweat profusely, Zoro had little choice but to get rid of them. Zoro used the technique he had used to clear large swarms of enemies to rid himself of the crowd of Imps. He jumped into the air and spread out his katanas.

"**Kyutoryu: Sanmanroksen Pound Miraboru Ho!" **(Nine Sword Style: 36000 Pound Disco Ball Cannon)

Zoro fired out wave after wave of '36 Pound Cannons' off in every direction, sometimes hitting Asura but mainly clearing out most of the 'Hell-Spawn Imps'. After the barrage of '36 Pound Cannons' Zoro landed unsteadily as it had completely exhausted him to the point where he could barely keep up **Asura**. He went into a clearing from his barrage and hid behind a rock, he was close to completely out of stamina and was forced to consume one of his rarer herbs. It was a hard and barely plant like herb which was chocolate brown in colour and only found in specific places of certain floors. Zoro ate it and instantly felt energised.

He glanced over to see that his barrage had reduced Asura's health by only another 1% as they were significantly weaker than his '360 Pound Cannons'. As he tried to think of a way to attack Asura without getting overwhelmed by the Imps. He saw many pillars supporting the coliseum and had an idea. He slashed at the top and bottom of one of the pillars, dislodging it and used a '1080 Pound Cannon' to launch it towards Asura. Prioritising avoiding a direct hit, Asura used a blade to block the attack and the blade had happened to be the one that Zoro had attacked earlier. As the massive pillar collided with the blade, it snapped and the upper end of the blade flew with the remaining parts of the pillar and struck Asura square in the chest, taking a noticeable amount of its health off.

Asura was now at 90% health as it reached up to grab its third health bar sword. The sword began to materialize but was now of a different design, the curve of the sword now had spikes jutting out. It was aflame by a cadmium-lemon flame. As Asura let out another roar, the next phase had begun. Zoro tried to conserve his herbs and drank some more of his Sake.

Now that its swords had changed again, Zoro was concerned if he could still manage to keep up the fight. Asura put the yellow and blue flamed swords together, the fires merged to form a cinnabar green flame. As flames flew out of the centre of the crossed blades to cover the entire coliseum, Zoro used his arms to block the flames but was surprised to find that the flames did not burn, but felt rather cool. He then noticed that the Imps had been calmed by the flames, all the Imps then pixelated and the pixels gathered below Asura. A new monster had been formed, 'Devil-Spawn Troll' it read, it was as a quarter as big as Asura, rivaling the size of giants.

The Troll wielded an axe engulfed by a pale green flame and was sprinting towards Zoro. It jumped up into the air and dived with its axe out front in an attempt to surprise Zoro with an aerial attack. Zoro anticipated the attack and used his katanas to block the axe before it could connect. The strength of the creature had caught Zoro off guard, it continued to push its axe down onto Zoro's blades, the strength had overwhelmed Zoro and had to jump back. The axe strike continued to the ground where Zoro had been before and a huge cloud of dust was thrown up. When the dust had cleared, the crater the axe had created was revealed. Zoro doubted that he would be able to compete with this level of strength easily and activated his 'Six Gorilla' again. The Troll jumped out of the crater and stood in front of Zoro, now seeing it up close, Zoro saw how tall it really was. Zoro readied his stance and used another upgraded version of his older techniques. He paired two Shusuis, two Kitetsus and one Shusui and one Kitetsu together, forming three double blades.

"**Kyutoryu: Sai to Ushi Bari Danmaku!" **(Rhino and Bull's Horns Barrage)

He charged the Troll while using his three Wado Ichimonjis to block the axe as it came down above him. His hits all sliced the massive Troll as it his six swords barraged the Troll with cuts. As the troll fell over and pixelated, Zoro used what little remained of his energy to hide behind some fallen pillars before Asura started its next attack. The two techniques combined had completely run him dry of stamina and he had to disable his Asura mode to restore stamina. Now with only three swords left, he drank some Sake and used up the last of his stamina herbs. While waiting for them to take effect, he looked over the fallen pillar and saw Asura now crossing the yellow and red blades, creating a bright orange flame. The flame spread to cover Asura's entire body and Zoro saw its health bar rise slowly.

About to go out and face Asura, Zoro gripped his katanas and reactivated **Asura**. But what happened next had confused him greatly, Asura had grabbed three of its life bars and turned them into blades. Asura had crossed all six of them and two more health bars had flown on their own transforming into blades and formed a fourth cross. Asura's second last health bar had done the most surprising thing, it had melted together the four crosses to form a single huge sword. The sword was massive in size, it was three quarters as tall as Asura, as broad as Laboon had been and was as thick as a pirate ship.

(I pictured the sword as the upper part of the 'Double Bladed Staff' in Risen)

It became apparent that Asura's ten health bars had merely been for intimidation as nine had been used up in the end to power itself up, but its defense was so great that the single health bar was more than a challenge.

Asura's legs had uncrossed and it was now standing, appearing taller than it ever was before and now its six eyes had opened. Now Asura and all of its swords were engulfed by a black flame. Standing tall, the great Daibutsu used its six strong arms to wield the great blade. As it moved, its steps shook the ground. The blade came down onto Zoro as he hurriedly used 'Six Gorilla' and blocked the strike, the shock wave created spewed dust out of the coliseum as a crater as big as a small town was created. Even with his heightened strength that could take all six of Asura's original swords at once, it proved useless against the new blade as Zoro felt himself being crushed under the new blade's immense force.

He knew he was fighting a losing battle, the impact itself had shown the strength of the new blade. Immobilized and unable to hold it back any longer, Zoro's stamina continued to dwindle as he pushed himself to hold back the attack. Asura brought the blade up, exhausted, Zoro fell to the ground as his **Asura **was deactivated. Laying flat in the crater, barely hanging on to his three swords, Zoro closed his eyes as Asura brought the sword down once more…

'I guess this is the end, and here I thought I could beat this thing. It ain't named Asura for nothing after all. Its been a fun two years, but I guess I wasn't strong enough.'

A familiar voice ringed in Zoro's ears as he had given up.

'Now now Zoro, where was all that confidence you had before, what about all the people you were going to save? What about going back to Luffy and the rest of the crew? What about being the best swordsman in the world? If you fail here, all these goals will be left unfinished.'

Realization dawned on Zoro as Kayaba spoke those words. He had promises to keep, people to save. He couldn't die here!

Regaining his will to fight, Zoro quickly did a spin and used the momentum to jump out of the way of the sword. As the sword hit earth, a mushroom cloud of dust was thrown into the air. Now determined to win, Zoro consumed every stamina item he had even the ones that gave barely any. He used them all at once and managed to refill his stamina to about 85%. Zoro puts all his confidence into a final attempt at defeating Asura, a combo of attacks that he had never attempted before.

"**Kyutoryu: Asura: Ugui!" **(Nine Sword Style: Asura: Piercing Drill)

Zoro launches himself upward towards Asura which had lifted its blade up to block Zoro. Zoro's technique continued to drill away at Asura's great sword until he lost his momentum and slow down. Using the remaining momentum, Zoro released a '2340 Pound Cannon' at the blade. It managed to blast the blade upwards slightly. Using the opportunity, Zoro fired off '36 Pound Cannons' behind him and used the recoil to fly directly in front of Asura's face but behind the sword. He readied his attack,

"**Kyutoryu Ogi: Roku Gorilla Daibutsu Yaki Giri!" **(Nine Sword Style Secret Technique: Six Gorilla Great Buddha Burning Slash)

As Zoro initiated his attacks, his swords were set alight and slashed at Asura. His six swords at the side slashed at Asura diagonally, the middle three slashed vertically. Finishing his slash, Asura's great form was consequently cut into multiple pieces.

As Zoro landed, he sheathed his swords and Asura was engulfed in flames. The final bits of its health bar dwindled away and it crumbled to the ground, pixelating away, leaving behind its great sword as the trophy. Strangely, even though he was completely exhausted just a few moments ago, Zoro felt himself still full of strength. He glanced to the corner and saw that he had been fully healed, behind him, he heard a familiar sound. He looked over to where Asura had once been to see Kayaba standing there with a smile on his face.

"Well done Zoro, you have completed the game, now I shall add in your **System Bypass** and all you have to do is head back out of the dungeon to get to the other players. When you see them, remember not to mention me, after all, I trapped them here."

"Yea yea, I got it you crazy old man now just how exactly do I help them."

"You simply have to defeat me on the 100th floor on the top. Also as another reward for finishing this dungeon, I shall give you a title."

Kayaba opened up the interface and keyed in a few commands, now beside Zoro's name, a title appeared.

'**Santoryu Kenshi, Sword Art Online's Greatest Sword Master: Roronoa Zoro'**

"Its a bit long don't you think? Well whatever, I guess its fitting. Greatest Sword Master huh? I've come a long way since being a bounty hunter back in that Marine Base in East Blue. I still need to head back and get this title again by beating Mihawk."

"Well goodbye for now Zoro, when we meet again, it will be as enemies."

As Kayaba teleported away, Zoro stepped onto the ever so familiar pedestal and went back up to the 99th floor to begin his climb back up to the first floor.

* * *

><p>*On the 74th Floor*<p>

With the final strike, 'The Gleam Eyes' health bar was empty and it pixelated away.

"Is it...over?"

As the Congratulations appeared, Kirito fell back, exhausted and with only a minute amount of health left. His eyes felt heavy as his consciousness left him.

"Kirito-kun! Come on, Kirito-kun!"

Kirito awoke to Asuna above him, teary eyed, calling out his name.

After all the crying and worry was over, Kirito used a Healing Crystal and was back to full health. An announcement was suddenly broadcast to the entire game.

"**Roronoa Zoro has cleared all 100 floors of the Hidden Dungeon, The Santoryu Kenshi has cleared the Hidden Dungeon."**

Everyone in the boss room froze at the news.

"What the heck?! Someone cleared that thing?!" one of the army soldiers shouted.

"What? What is the Hidden Dungeon?" Klein asked.

"Its a dungeon below the Black Iron Palace, the mobs there are insanely strong, about level 50 or so, and the boss is said to be even stronger!"

"A dungeon like that exist? And someone cleared it?"

"Santoryu Kenshi…" Kirito said.

Everyone turned to see Kirito.

"Apparently I wasn't the only one who got a Unique Skill, I got Dual Blades, but he got Santoryu… Someone like that doesn't go unnoticed and I am sure I have never seen him before."

No one else had seen him either.

"My guess is that he has been in that dungeon since the game started, or at least within the first month during the mass suicides. He has been there for two years, training continuously without dying somehow. Soloing that insane dungeon."

"But thats impossible, even our bests couldn't get as far as half the dungeon before having to retreat!" the army soldier cried out.

"We should all just forget about it for now, it might be a system malfunction or something." Klein attempted to calm everyone down.

"Yeah, I guess so…"

* * *

><p>AN: I am going to be continuing this story until the end because I feel like it, it will take a while as I sometimes switch other to other things. I have the story mostly planned out in my head so updates will come quicker. Please Review, it really encourages me.


	3. Chapter 3

On the first floor of the hidden dungeon, Thinker was trapped, with the powerful boss mob "**The Fatal Scythe V7" **guarding the way out to the surface, he was forced to seek shelter in the safe zone.

"Damn that Kibaou! I need to get back to the guild! Its been three days already, surely someone would have noticed I was gone? Yulier-san should! Then again, Kibaou might have gotten rid of her too. Damn it!"

Looking out the door, Thinker saw the name of the boss in the hallway, waiting to ambush any people coming down here.

"I can't take it anymore! I need to get out of here now!"

Thinker drew his sword and ran straight towards the exit, regardless of weather he would die or not, he was determined to at get back and save his guild or die trying.

"Hyaaaaaa!"

'I can only block one hit, I need to use the hit to send me flying towards the exit so I can get away.'

As he was just at the intersection where the boss came out, he jumped and used his sword to block behind him and the scythe came and tried to cut him. The hit was so strong that the sword's durability was instantly brought down to zero and it shattered, sending Thinker flying. Low on health, Thinker ran as fast as he could down the hallway when suddenly "**The Fatal Scythe V7" **appeared in front of him.

'It teleported?!"

As the scythe once again came for Thinker, he used his arms to try and shield himself from the blow. He shut his eyes, waiting for the blow.

"**Kitsunebi-ryu: Karyu Issen!"**(Fox-Fire Style: Flaming Flash!)

Upon hearing the voice, he opened his eyes and saw a green haired swordsman sheathing his sword and the boss enveloped in flames before it broke into pixels.

"Tsk, damn bosses respawning, well at least when they get stronger its not too much. Now I'm back here again, great." Zoro complained as he drank some more sake.

Shocked that this player had managed to take out the boss in a single hit, Thinker was frozen on the spot.

'Who is this guy? Forget that, what is he doing down here anyway? Did Yulier send him?'

"Umm, who are you?"

"Huh? I'm Roronoa Zoro, you okay? What you doing down here?"

"I'm Thinker, I was trapped here three days ago by someone."

"I see, do you know the way out? I'm kinda lost in here."

"Yea… I can bring you out if you protect me."

"Perfect! Then lead the way."

"Right…"

As Zoro and Thinker walked, Thinker was in deep thought.

'Roronoa Zoro, where have I heard that name before…'

Thinker looked over to Zoro's waist and saw that he had three sword sheaths tied to him.

"Why do you have three swords?"

"Huh? O, cause I'm a Santoryu Kenshi, I use three blades to fight."

"Three blades?! How?! I have only heard of The Black Swordsman wielding more than one blade!"

"The Black Swordsman? I would love to fight him then." A grin appeared on Zoro's face as he slashed another **Scavenger Toad**.

"Now I remember where I heard your name from! You're the guy from the announcement those weeks ago! You cleared this dungeon?!"

"Yea, so?"

"But this dungeon's first floor is even harder than the 50th floor of the one on top!"

"Really? Then I guess that makes my job easier."

"What?!"

"I'm getting you guys out of here!"

Thinker was shocked into silence, as they turned a corner, they saw four people in front of them.

"Thinker! Your safe!"

"Yulier-san!"

They both ran to hug each other as Zoro walked towards the Swordsman garbed in black with two sword handles visible behind his head. Kirito and Asuna examined the green haired swordsman as he approached them with his signature grin.

"You're The Black Swordsman?" Zoro said gripping his swords.

"Thats what they call me, I assume you're the guy from the announcement weeks ago, The Santoryu Kenshi?" Kirito admitted, sizing Zoro up as he grabbed the handle of his Elucidator.

"I guess my reputation precedes me, would you by any chance be interested in a spar? If you impress me I'll help you clear the floors."

"Wait Kirito-kun, I don't think its such a good idea." Asuna added.

"Papa…"

"We don't have much of a choice, the floors are getting harder and harder, the next floor is one of the tougher ones."

"So do we have an agreement?"

"Yes, lets get going then, we can decide where to fight after we get out of here."

"Fine by me."

* * *

><p>In the arena where Kirito fought Heathcliff, Zoro and Kirito stood staring at each other. The arena was once again filled with players from all over Aincrad.<p>

"Lets make this more interesting shall we? How about we make it a fight to the death?"

"What?! There's no way Kirito-kun will agree to that right?" Asuna yelled from the stands.

"But here's the trade off, if you impress me, I'll give you five of these and even let you live." Zoro suggested holding out a gold crystal crystal shaped exactly like the revival item.

"The Revival Item?!"

"Actually they're **Immortality Crystals**, anyone who uses this will be sent back to the starter town as a level one if they die instead of having their brains fried."

"Hmm…" Kirito closed his eyes in deep thought.

'I would be able to protect Asuna, Klein, Agil and Yui with it...'

"So how bout it?"

"You have a deal, but you better not be lying!"

"O, I never lie."

As the timer counted down to the start of the match, Kirito drew his Dark Repulsor and Elucidator, Zoro drew Shusui

"**5...4...3...2...1...Begin!"**

Kirito charged in with his two blades and immediately initiated the his signature sword skill on Zoro.

"**Starburst Stream!" **(50-Hit)

Using only one sword, Zoro effortlessly blocked all 50 hits of the attack at insane speeds, even the 15 hit "Corkscrew" was completely blocked.

"You're gonna need to do better than that to even stand a chance at beating me kid,"

With that, Kirito jumped away and noticed Zoro had changed his stance.

"**Ittoryu: Sanjuroku Pound Ho!" **(One Sword Style: 36 Pound Cannon!)

As the burst of compressed air flew towards Kirito, he crossed his swords and activated Cross Block to block it but the attempt was futile as he was blown away by the force of the blast. Looking at his health bar, he saw that he was already at 16,000/18,500 hp.

'He's strong! In one hit he reduced so much of my health!"

"What? You done already kid? I thought you were tougher than that! That was one of my weakest techniques! Show me the power of The Black Swordsman!"

'I need to find a way to catch him off guard if I want to even touch him!'

"I'll give you a free hit kid, come on!"

Grabbing the opportunity, Kirito went straight for a Dual Horizontal at Zoro's waist. The swords cut at both Zoro's sides, but did not go deep at all, barely leaving a flesh wound.

"Really? Thats all you got? I barely felt that."

'Maybe if I use multiple chained one sword techniques I can catch him by surprise.'

He ran up to Zoro, both swords glowing, with his barrage of out of sync hits catching Zoro by surprise, Kirito found an opening while switching between Vertical and Horizontal and managed to slash at Zoro's left leg.

"Purposely attacking out of sync to make predicting more difficult for me, but it won't work again."

Zoro drew his second sword, Sandai Kitetsu and changed stance once again.

"**Nitoryu: Nigiri Hirameki!" **(Two Sword Style: Double Slash Flash!)

As the two compressed air projectiles flew towards Kirito, instead of blocking, Kirito tried to dodge them. One hit the ground beside him but the other was a direct hit on his right shoulder.

"Ugh!"

Asuna, Yui, Klein, Agil and many others that were gathered in the seats gasped as they saw the scene unfold.

"Go Kirito-kun, I know you can do it!"

"Papa! Ganbatte!"

"Kirito! I know you can do it! Beat that Santoryu Kenshi's ass!"

"Kirito! If you fail here, I'll never forgive you! I'm going to burn all my merchandise if you don't come back safely!"

'Damn, I didn't dodge in time! Now I'm down to 11,000 hp! I need to be faster! Everyone's counting on me!"'

Kirito grabbed five throwing needles from his belt and threw it towards Zoro as he ran for a slice while Zoro was distracted. Unfortunately, Zoro had anticipated it this time and used one sword to block the needles while the other countered Kirito's two blades as they came for a diagonal slash.

"Heh, pretty neat trick you have there. But it won't work on me that easily!"

Zoro jumped back and readied his stance.

"**Nitoryu: Nanajuni Pound Ho!"** (Two Sword Style: 72 Pound Cannon!)

As Zoro launched the compressed air projectiles once more, Kirito tried to counter them by launching his own.

"**Double Circular!" **(2-Hit)

The projectiles collided with each other and dissipated.

"Still have some tricks up your sleeves I see, interesting. Well then I guess I should take you just a bit more seriously."

Zoro drew his Wado Ichimonji and clamped down on it with his mouth. Kirito readied himself as was about to witness first hand the power of The Santoryu Kenshi. Kirito ran up to Zoro and initiated his sword skill.

"**Nightmare Rain!" **(16-Hit)

Kirito's blades continuously slashed downwards at Zoro, the speed of the slices forced Zoro to only parry the attacks. The end of the combo, a jump-spin slash, caused Zoro to be knocked back slightly.

'Tsk, he's tougher than I thought he would be, this will be a good fight."

Kirito did not let up the attack and immediately activated another sword skill.

"**Shine Circular!" **(15-Hit)

The 15 hit combo came as a surprise for Zoro as multiple waves of compressed air were sent flying at him at close range. Through a combination of luck and skill, Zoro managed to only get hit by one of the projectiles. It had cut his waist slightly and left him open for a moment. This brief moment was all Kirito had needed to land a deadly strike on Zoro.

"**Countless Spike!" **(4-Hit)

His two swords slash at Zoro's two front diagonals then they were put together and aimed to pierce the middle of the two diagonals slashes, Zoro did little but smile as the attack connected. He jumped back and once more changed his stance."

"You're doing better than I ever expected you to, truly the title of The Black Swordsman fits you nicely. But, you still have a long way to go before you can surpass me!"

Zoro posed and readied himself to attack.

"**Ichi Gorilla, Ni Gorilla, Nigori-Zake!" **(One Gorilla, Two Gorilla, Two Arm Strength Slash!)

Kirito activated Cross Block again and tried to block the attack. Zoro's three sword tips all clashed against the middle of Kirito's Cross Block. The clashing of steel caused sparks to fly. As Zoro continued to push against Kirito's Cross Block, Kirito kept on pressing his swords, trying to push back Zoro somehow. With one final push, Zoro sent Kirito flying into the wall of the arena.

The audience gasped as one of their strongest players was sent flying by a single attack. Kirito looked at his health bar and saw that even with battle healing, it had gone down to 9,000/18,500, putting him in the orange zone. He looked at Zoro's bar and saw that it was at 19,800/20,000.

_A/N: Remember his actual stats are hidden, his health is actually at 990,000/1,000,000 hp + he has the 50% Damage Reduction __**System Bypass**__. Also keep in mind that he has no armor so he takes quite a lot of damage._

'Impossible! My entire barrage of attacks only hurt him by 200 hp?!'

"I have to admit, I didn't think you would be able to hold it back for so long!"

"What the hell kind of defense do you have! All my attacks barely scratched you!"

"Maybe if you win I'll tell you! Now come!"

Kirito charged at Zoro holding both swords out.

"**End Revolver!" **(2-Hit)

Zoro blocked both sword tips with Shusui and Sandai Kitetsu, then slashed at Kirito's already injured right shoulder with Wado Ichimonji.

"Argh!"

Everyone spectating was stunned as they saw Kirito's right arm fall to the ground and break into pixels, The Elucidator fell and embedded itself into the ground. Now with an extremely panicked look on his face, Kirito jumped back, the full weight of what he had agreed to finally hitting him.

"Now what will you do, Kuro Kenshi! I took of your arm, you're at a disadvantage now!"

Kirito charged back in with a One Handed sword skill.

"**Vorpal Strike!" **(1-Hit)

Kirito's Dark Repulsor glowed yellow as he thrusted it straight at Zoro, forcing Zoro to block the strike with his three swords, giving Kirito time to attack again.

"**Serration Wave!" **(1-Hit)

The attack stunned Zoro slightly and impeded his movement, Kirito followed up with another powerful attack.

"**Howling Octave!"** (8-Hit)

Kirito quickly stabbed Zoro's chest five times before slashing his sword downwards, then upwards, finishing with another, more powerful, upwards slash. The force of the slash knocked Zoro into the air before he fell down on the ground. Taking the opportunity of Zoro being vulnerable, Kirito used one of his finisher moves.

"**Sharp Nail!" **(3-Hit)

Kirito stabbed his blade into Zoro's front three times continuously at high speeds. Recovered from the shock, Zoro used his swords to knock Kirito away and got back up to his feet. He looked at his hp and at Kirito's. He was at 19,500/20,000 and Kirito was at 6,000/16,000 (Max Health Temporarily Lowered Due To Severed Limb).

"You've really done a number on me kid, I commend you for managing to bring me down that much at all, but I'm gonna win."

"I can still fight, Zoro! Even if you take my other arm off, I'm not going to give up until I win!"

"Well said…" Zoro said as he grinned and readied his stance for another attack.

"**Yasha Garasu!" **(Demonic Raven!)

Zoro launched himself off the ground and flew towards Kirito, thrusting all his swords forwards as he flew. Kirito tried to block the attacks best he could with only one arm but to no avail. Some hits had managed to get through, creating a multiple cuts in the shape of a Crow's Feet along his body and arms. Zoro was unrelenting and launched another attack straight at Kirito directly after his barrage of thrusts.

"**Hyakuhachi Pound Ho!" **(108 Pound Cannon!)

Kirito was blown back as the three compressed air projectiles merged together and stuck him square in the chest. Walking over to Kirito's limp form, Zoro looked down on Kirito.

"Kirito!" the spectators all shouted in shock.

"Ready to give up yet?"

"No…" Kirito strained as he struggled to get back on his feet.

"I'm never going to give up!"

"Then come at me! Kuro Kenshi!"

Kirito charged Zoro again, starting with a block breaker.

"**Meteor Break!" **(3-Hit)

Kirito knocked Zoro's three swords away and continued his assault with another combo attack.

"**Star Quint Prominence!" **(6-Hit)

Kirito's sword glowed and slashed Zoro six times, forming an asterix of cuts, using the momentum of his hits, Kirito activated his Ultimate One Handed Skill.

"**Phantom Rave!"** (6-Hit)

He slashed at Zoro continuously six times at unbelievably high speed. After the barrage of hits, Zoro jumped back, actually injured by the multiple continuous barrage of sword skills, he spat out some blood on the ground and wiped the rest off. He was now at 19,100/20,000 and Kirito was at a mere 2,000.

"Didn't expect you to be so proficient at using only one sword, but I think its time I finish this…"

Zoro sheathed Wado Ichimonji and Sandai Kitetsu, wielding only Shusui, he closed his eyes and breathed in and out deeply before he suddenly disappeared.

"**Ittoryu: Sanbyakurokuji Pound Shogeki!" **(One Sword Style: 360 Pound Bombardment)

Running at speeds incomprehensible to human eyes, Zoro circled around Kirito and fired off ten '36 Pound Cannons' at him.

Confused by the attacks coming at him from nearly all directions, there was little that Kirito could do to avoid them and so he braced himself for the attack to come. As the hits struck him, he felt like a pinball, battered around in all directions. A massive dust cloud was created by the attacks. As the dust cleared, Kirito was seen standing, with his arm limp and head facing down. Zoro had stopped and sheathed Shusui, as the sword clicked into the sheathe, Kirito fell forward and broke into pixels.

"**Winner: Roronoa Zoro!"**

"Kirito-kun!"

"Papa!"

"Kirito!" both Klein and Agil yelled.

"Hahahaha! He's gone! That bastard of a Beater is dead! I may have been expelled from the guild, but at least I get to see that beater's demise!"

The crowd looked over and saw Kibaou laughing maniacally as he rejoiced over Kirito's death.

Asuna grabbed her Lambent Light and was about to attack Kibaou when Agil put his hand over his shoulder and shook his head.

"Hey look over there!" Klein suddenly shouted.

The audience looked back to the arena and saw a familiar giant cloaked figure appear.

"Now now Zoro, why did you have to go and kill my favourite player?"

"I guess I got a bit too carried away."

"Well, regardless of that, you should know, I will only allow you to enter the boss fight once five people die by the boss."

"Well then you better tell that to Kirito after you revive him then."

"Don't worry I will, now I suggest you take a break. You will be given a notification once four people die on a boss. Once the fifth dies, you will be teleported in his place to fight the boss. I have no doubt you will annihilate it instantly which is why I have set the conditions as such."

With that, a bright light enveloped Zoro as he was transported to a distant location. Kayaba opened up his interface.

"System Command: Revive Player: Kirito ."

Pixels reformed Kirito's body as he was revived, upon opening his eyes, Kirito saw that Kayaba had appeared and for some reason revived him.

"Everyone, Roronoa Zoro has been impressed and will help you in your boss battles!"

The audience rejoiced as they heard the good news. Cheers erupted from the audience as they now had such a powerful player on their side and thought that clearing the game would be a breeze now.

"However! I will only allow him into the battle after five people have fallen! There is an exception though, if you beat him in a duel, I will allow him to fight in every single boss battle once only one person has died. He is now hidden on the first floor. Fight well clearers, for five people a floor is no small number." Kayaba's body started to fade away.

As Kayaba left, silence fell over the arena, the previous joy was crushed by the conditions. To get through a floor using Zoro, they basically had to sacrifice five people. Meaning that it was only useful as a last resort. Kirito was still in a daze from being resurrected and after taking in what had happened, he quickly ran back to the meeting point he and the others had agreed on. No one noticed him slipping away as most had started discussing among themselves and gossiping rumors around what had happened.

* * *

><p>Back in Agil's shop, the group was assembled in the back room with troubled looks on their faces.<p>

"Kayaba showed up, in two years he never showed his face and never said a word. What was so special about today? Does Zoro have something to do with him?" Kirito questioned.

"It seems pretty strange to me, but that Zoro guy was ridiculously strong, I saw both of your health bars, his barely went down from any of your attacks and healed extremely slowly, like he had some kind of low level battle healing. Your battle healing is almost maxed out, so you healed pretty fast, but those attacks he threw at you…" Agil added.

"It was like he threw the slice of his sword! I mean some sword skills make your swords hit a bit farther but those looked like they could really fly!" Klein exclaimed.

"He only used attacks that threw those air blades at you, he didn't really run at you with his swords, but all your attacks were deflected easily and he even said that he was going easy. He killed you while he was going easy, what if he comes back and this time he kills you for real! You can't let that happen to you Kirito-kun, I'm not allowing you to die again!"

"I promise I won't Asuna, so stop worrying, its strange though, why would Kayaba revive me for?"

"You don't suppose maybe Zoro is some kind of experiment that broke loose do you? His name wasn't on the Monument of Life after all. Maybe Kayaba wanted to use him for something, but he killed you and it went against what Kayaba had planned so he tried to fix everything?"

"Its possible, but I don't know Agil, it seemed too off."

"He could just be a programme! I mean he wasn't on The Monument of Life what if he's some kind of ghost programme Kayaba wanted to use if we started lazing around instead of clearing the game?"

"Hmm…"

As Kirito thought on the idea, he suddenly got a notification. He had received a message from Roronoa Zoro. He opened the message.

'**Here are your Immortality Crystals, you're pretty good with the swords. I expect you to come and face me again, of course I won't kill you again, Kayaba wouldn't like that. I will be on the first floor if you ever want to try and fight me. Go train in the hidden dungeon first, but don't fight the bosses, they get stronger every time they respawn and I think I killed them a lot of times on my way back so most of them are on V5+ or something. With your skill, you should be able to barely take on an infinite wave of scavenger toads. Also, Kayaba said to give the kid the extra item that comes with the message. I'll be waiting.'**

**Items Attached: Immortality Crystals (5), Memory Crystal (1)**

"Its from Zoro, he wasn't lying, he gave me the crystals, but he apparently knows Kayaba personally and wants me to give this to Yui for Kayaba."

"See I told you! He's a programme! I say we delete those items! They could be poisonous or something."

"But what if it has Yui's memory in it, it is a memory crystal…" Asuna said.

"Yui, what do you think?"

"I'll try it, if it gives me my memory back it may help understand what's going on."

Yui took the crystal from Kirito, but when she activated it, something different happened. The top of the crystal opened up and hexagonal pixels came out of it. The pixels flew into Yui's eyes. Yui froze as a stream of pixels continued to flow out of the crystal into her eyes. As it completed its job, the crystal close back up and then shattered.

After a few moments, Yui blinked, regaining her senses… she heard people calling her name.

"Yui!"

"Yui!"

"Yui-chan!"

"Oi! Yui!"

She blinked again and looked around. Everyone was now crowded around her.

"What happened?" Yui finally responded.

"You were not responsive after that crystal shot some kind of beam into your eyes!"

"Yui are you okay?!"

"I think I'm fine…Agh!"

Yui suddenly clutched her head and closed her eyes as she grunted.

"Yui! What's happening?!"

After a while, Yui calmed down and looked back at everyone.

"I remember everything…"

* * *

><p>AN: Review for faster updates, it encourages me to write and not give up on a story.


	4. Chapter 4

In a flash of light, Zoro was transported to an area similar to the arena where he fought Asura, only it was significantly larger. He walked around and saw there were various buttons in the room he spawned in. They were labeled with different words.

In a few moments, Kayaba appeared in his usual lab-coated form.

"Ah Zoro, you'll be staying here for now, this place is an arena I built for you to train, the only way up here is a set of stairs which players have to clear out to reach the spectators stands. Now these buttons here, each push spawns a different variant of Asura for you to fight. From left to right, the first is an Asura that wields six swords all in their upgraded forms. The second will be wielding two of its gigantic blades, each with three arms on either side. The third will wield, similar to you, nine swords. The fourth will be an incredibly fast version of the first."

Miniature holograms of the bosses appeared below the buttons.

"The fifth one will be like the second, only with twice as much health, feel free to spawn multiple of them once you get comfortable with them. They get stronger after each death. Use them to train up and become stronger, many people will be coming after you. The last button will take you to the resting area."

Zoro tested all the bosses with breaks in between. The resting area was a bar with the song Bink's sake playing in the background. The grinding area had a huge gate, a lever opened and closed it. When opened, waves and waves of different mobs would flood through which he easily cut up. A week passed as he continued to grind Asuras, two at a time, developing and testing new techniques along the way.

* * *

><p>After sorting everything out with Yui and everyone else, Kirito went off to the Hidden Dungeon, he remembered that he had easily taken out those frogs. Entering the dungeon, Kirito drew his blades and headed into the deeper parts of the dungeon, after the point where he encountered Zoro. As he continued exploring, he heard a wave of croaking in the distance. He turned back to see a swarm of Scavenger Toads, he couldn't see the end of them, the army of toads stretched to the opposite end of the hall and beyond.<p>

'How did I miss this? Is this what Zoro meant by an infinite wave of Scavenger Toads?!'

Kirito drew his swords and prepared himself to grind the frogs as long as he could. A few hours passed and as predicted by Zoro, his battle healing and parrying allowed him to lose just a few point of health throughout the fight. The toads were endless in numbers and the swarm had only ended days later, Kirito immediately used a Teleport Crystal to get out. He was mentally exhausted and starving from the long grinding. He had not trained this hard in quite some time, he even forced his mind to ignore the hunger and thirst urges and focus on the battle.

Kirito went to Asuna's home to get some food. Upon arriving, he saw her cooking in the kitchen, the smell reached his nose and his stomach growled loudly.

"Kirito-kun! You look terrible, what have you been doing in that dungeon?!"

"I was cornered, those frogs we met at the entrance, thousands of them came after me when I went deeper into the dungeons. My Battle Healing allowed me to lose minimal health, but it tired me out. I can see why Zoro was so strong…"

'The amount of experience points and col I got from them went up as I leveled up, they seemed to scale in strength with me as well. That means that I train there without having to need to kill a lot more for each level.'

"Kirito-kun, you need to rest, you look really worn out." Kirito slumped as Asuna hurried to support him and sat him at the table.

"I'm fine! I have to get stronger, if I beat Zoro, it will decrease the number of deaths drastically! I'm the only one who stands a chance against him and his Santoryu!"

Asuna handed him some of the stew she had made and sat across from him.

"You need to get your energy up, if you don't eat anything for too long you'll collapse, not even you can be able to ignore hunger for too long."

Kirito wolfed down bowl after bowl of the stew that Asuna had made, at some point Yui had entered the room and was enjoying a lollipop Asuna had prepared.

"Aah, thanks Asuna, I feel much better now, I guess it wasn't such a good idea to just go storming in like that, sorry to worry you both."

"Papa, you better not be down there for too long, Mama and I get lonely!"

"Its fine Kirito-kun, just don't do something like that again. The boss fight meeting is next week at noon, make sure not to be late."

"I guess I should rest for a while, thanks for the food Asuna, I'll go meet Agil and then head out tomorrow."

"Be careful Kirito-kun!"

"Papa, bye bye! Make sure not to do anything reckless!"

* * *

><p>'I guess I should rest up at home, those frogs took forever to clear out, I got enough Scavenger Toad Meat to feed a village for a year. Agil should be bringing those to the orphanage soon, I should get something for Asuna and Yui on my way back...'<p>

As Kirito continued his journey through the world, a figure clad in black watched silently as Kirito entered and left stores for supplies. He used his palm to push up his glasses one more time before disappearing into the darkness of the shadows.

* * *

><p>The week had passed and the boss meeting was held, Asuna had brought Yui along and told her to sit quietly while the grown ups were talking as the meeting was serious. Some of the players seemed nervous and on edge, wary of Kirito after what had happened.<p>

"Based on what information we have, the boss is not visible at first. Our main reconnaissance team went in to investigate, only for the door to close behind them. When the door opened a few minutes later, the room was empty and there was no sign of them." Heathcliff summarized.

"An invisible boss?!" one of the players exclaimed.

"We don't know for sure, but it's possible, nearly anything is possible for this boss. It will be much harder than anything we've faced before, this will be the last of the quarter bosses before the final boss. Based on the scouts who were outside, they managed to catch a glimpse of the boss room before the door closed. From their description, there were large platforms around the main area, it is also significantly larger than any of the boss rooms on the previous floors." Heathcliff explained.

"I guess its safe to assume that the platforms will be part of one of the boss' phases and that it is an anti-crystal zone, same as last floor, seeing as the scout team did not use their supplied crystals." Kirito hypothesized.

"Well of course you'd would know that! Your working with Kayaba! I bet you'll betray us later and just stab us in the back!" One of the more paranoid KOB members accused.

"I'm want to get out of this place as much as everyone else does! I just wanted to help us escape here faster by getting Zoro on our side, which I succeeded to some extent!"

"Yea, but you got revived by Kayaba! You gotta be hiding something, there's no way Kayaba would just specially revive you and no one else! You must have struck a deal with him beforehand, where you'd be the only one to go free if all of us died! You rotten Beater!" another player argued.

"Thats right! Even Zoro's help came with the condition of sacrificing ourselves!" a member of the DDA added.

"No one anything about sacrificing!" Asuna corrected.

"Besides, for all we know, that Zoro guy could instead come to kill us when five of us die, he could be a programme or something. After all, he knew Kayaba personally enough to get him to appear in the game after not showing himself for two years when he killed Kirito!" The KOB member theorized.

Yui decided to finally speak up and accessed her databanks to search up information on Zoro. Her face went blank as she summarised what data she had.

"My memory banks state that Zoro is indeed a player, however he entered the game just as the Beta was ending and remained since then. As I analyzed his emotional parameters during his time in the Hidden Dungeon, I found that he took it as a challenge to train himself to be stronger while advancing through the dungeon. He has interacted with Kayaba personally on multiple occasions, usually at the end of floors to negotiate ways to get stronger."

"That just proves that he's working with Kayaba!" a member of one of the smaller clearer guilds shouted.

Ignoring the interruption, Yui continued her report.

"However, the conversation they had near the end was the most enlightening, Kayaba gave Zoro a choice between leaving the game or saving those trapped along with him. Kayaba gave Zoro time to think and would come for the answer upon the defeat of the final boss."

"What was his answer then?" the clearer from earlier asked.

"Unfortunately, I do not possess much data on that as I left my post as the fight was ongoing. I do however, know that he was considering the option after Kayaba left, his emotions showed little conflict and leaned towards sympathy."

"Seeing as he didn't leave, it is safe to say he stayed to help, but was too powerful so Kayaba imposed restrictions on him to prevent us from clearing the game too quickly." Heathcliff inferred.

" Now I suggest that everyone focus on the task at hand so we don't end up losing enough people so that Zoro appears incase your theory is correct." the players looked down uncomfortable and continued with the meeting.

Many players were still suspicious of Kirito and Zoro, but set it aside to focus on the meeting and preparation. The rest of the meeting was quiet and somewhat awkward but the meeting time and place was decided, as well as formations.

* * *

><p>The day for the battle came and some of the clearers backed off when Kirito arrived.<p>

'Its only natural, I was revived by Kayaba, even if I didn't have anything to do with trapping them here, there will always be people like Kibaou who will accuse me of things like helping Kayaba for it'

"Oi, we have to trust each other if we are to work as a team, Kirito-kun would never help Kayaba, he's been fighting alone for so long to help us escape!"

"Asuna…"

The crowd relaxed a bit, but most were still wary. At exactly Twelve, Heathcliff arrived and briefed the clearers. One of the Knights opened up the portal and the clearers to enter. Before the boss door, Heathcliff gave a final speech to rally the troops and opened the door. Everyone charged in, only to notice that the room was empty. They scouted around the boss room and saw that the room had spikes at the bottom of the pit surrounding it. They tried to look into the pit to find the boss but found none.

'Thats strange, the boss usually is at the middle of the room, it was always obv-'

"UP THERE!"

Kirito turned to see one of the Fuurinkazan members pointing at the ceiling, everyone looked up to see the boss. It was a long segmented skeletal monster with two large bone scythes for hands. The moment the boss was noticed, Its health bars and name appeared and the fight started.

"**The Skull Reaper"**

It started jumped off the ceiling and brought its skeletal scythe down on one of the tanks. The tank readied its shield for the impact of the scythe, but it never came. The scythe went straight through the shield and sliced him. He was cleanly cut in two, pixelating into hexagons right before the eyes of his comrades.

"Kirito! You're with me, we need to distract those scythes, they seem to go through shields! The other scythe swung for me but my Shield-Sword was immune to the effect and protected me! The rest of you, attack its body!" Heathcliff shouted orders to the players.

They charged at it and attacked at the boss' weak spine with low cooldown swords skills while switching to heal and rest. Heathcliff and Kirito each blocked one of the scythes, Kirito at first tried to cut at it with one sword while parrying with the other, but it proved futile as his parry was broken by the slash. When using both Elucidator and Dark Repulsor, Kirito had managed to block the scythe well, so he switched to purely blocking and let the other clearers deal damage.

Ten minutes passed without incident, but a sudden scream was heard. From the front, Kirito caught a glimpse of someone pixelating into hexagons. Another of the clearers started running towards the boss.

"Yamada! Damn you, you stupid boss, why did you kill Yamada!"

The clearer started activating sword skills without any regard of the risks. He pounded away at the boss until one of the legs got him, it stabbed straight into his chest and he died. Some of the clearers started panicking and hesitated to attack.

"Everyone, focus, don't panic! We can mourn their losses later, we have to focus on the fight!" Asuna yelled from the side where she was attacking.

With renewed fervour, the remaining clears cleared their heads and continued attacking the boss. In a few moments, one of the boss' health bars got depleted and it changed its attack pattern, signalled by a scream. It jumped backwards and attached itself to the walls, leaving only some of its segments vulnerable. One of the clearers was attacking a leg by the side when it jumped and the leg rammed into him. The clearer was smashed against the wall and fell unconscious, falling into the pit of spikes below.

'That makes four, only one more.' Kayaba disguised as Heathcliff thought to himself as he watched the next phase initiate.

The players repositioned themselves to be able to safely attack the boss, while Kirito and Heathcliff continued to tank the two scythes that tried to cleave into their flesh. Now wary of the dangers, the clearers all played it safe and didn't risk anything. The second health bar was depleted without losses, save a few close calls, and The Skull Reaper returned to the centre of the room.

The third health bar was slowly and carefully being whittled down. Minutes passed as the boss' health went down little by little until it finally reached Zero and broke. Its fourth phase activated with a scream as The Skull Reaper suddenly shifted to a more defensive stance, it had rolled its segments up into a ball. It looked like a snail now, most of its weak spots were hidden, leaving only its tail segment exposed. Now that it had very little exposed, the clearers pulled back for a bit and strategized while Kirito and Heathcliff continued to switch with each other for healing.

The clearers with the highest attacks were chosen to attack the weak spot while the others looked to unconventional ways of attack. Those with the skill tried throwing some poison needles at any higher up exposed segments, while those with claws climbed it to attack, using one hand for attacking and the other to secure themselves.

The boss' health continued to go down at an extremely slow rate, with Kirito and Heathcliff distracting the scythes, the other clearers were relatively safe from harm. The boss' health bar reached zero and its next phase was initiated, the clearers backed off, not wanting to be killed off like the earlier player. The Skull Reaper latched onto the walls and started moving towards one of the platforms. As it was about to reach the platform, it detached half its body into the abyss and jumped to the platform.

"How are we supposed to hit it now?" Klein complained.

The boss' pulled back both its scythe arms as if readying to throw something. Kirito noticed the action and shouted for everyone to duck. The boss threw its scythe arms at the main platform and it barely cut the hair off of Klein's head. As some started lifting their heads, Kirito told them to stay down. The scythes started to boomerang back, nearly taking the heads of some players. with its scythe arms neatly attached, The Skull Reaper leaped back to the main part of the room and nearly crushed one of the DDA members.

The boss was now less vulnerable as it had discarded half of its weak points. The clearers used the same formations and Kirito with Heathcliff resumed distraction of the scythes.

'I'm down to just one **Life Crystal**, I didn't think the fight was going to be this hard.' Kirito thoght as he used his second last one.

As the heath bar reached the 90% mark, The Skull Reaper retreated back to one of the surrounding platforms and once again readied its scythes. As the scythes flew, one of the players forgot to duck the second time and the scythe decapitated him. His head rolled onto the ground and his body went limp. The players stared in shock as the fifth clearer was slain, Zoro's criteria had been fulfilled.

'Come Zoro, show them your strength! I think your fight with Kirito has gotten him enough of a reality hit, I feel safe leaving it in his hands now.'

"System Command: Paralyze All ."

All the players were suddenly paralyzed, the boss also stopped moving. Heathcliff however was unaffected.

"What happened?!" a DDA member questioned in panic.

"I told you it was a penalty!" The KOB member from earlier shouted.

"Why is Heathcliff unaffected?" Klein asked.

"Because he's Kayaba," Kirito turned to Heathcliff, "aren't you?"

"Very good Kirito-kun, but how did you find out? I took care to not reveal anything too drastic."

"During our fight, you moved too fast, I figured there was something wrong then."

"Yes, you were too fast for me, I had to use System Assist to block your attack. Now if you excuse me, I have some work to do."

Chatter flared up among the clearers as they all panicked over the new revelation.

"System Command: Full Heal All ."

All the players in the room and the boss was fully healed. Kayaba then teleported all the players on the surrounding platforms and teleported Zoro in front of the boss.

"Now just wait on the platforms while Zoro deals with this."

"So its finally time for my grand performance huh? Good, I was getting bored over there."

"System Command: Un-Paralyze All ."

The fight began anew as The Skull Reaper's five health bars were replenished. Everyone was eager to watch the fight as Zoro readied himself.

'Its not possible, he shouldn't be able to take down that boss himself no matter how much stronger he is than me! In our fight, from what I could tell, he had high health but his attacks weren't too powerful. I doubt they'll be able to severely damage the boss.' Kirito commented as he watched from the sidelines.

Drawing Shusui, Zoro got into stance as he prepared his attack.

'That's the stance he used when he was launching that attack at me, I think it was the 36 Pound Cannon or something… Wait! Its different somehow, he seems like he's putting more force into it!'

"**Ittoryu: Sanbyakurokuju Pound Ho!" **(One Sword Style: 360 Pound Cannon!)

The compressed air slice flew towards the boss. As it swirled towards its target, the attack didn't lose even an ounce of its strength. The hit connected with the boss, to the surprise of the clearers present, after the cloud of dust from the initial attack cleared, what could be seen, was the attack had gone straight through the boss and left a hole in the wall behind it, just barely missing one of the platforms. The boss was completely annihilated in one attack. Zoro sheathed his sword and as it clicked into the sheath, the boss broke into hexagons and the congratulations appeared.

'He never went all out on me at all! He was completely holding back!'

"Well, looks like my work here is done." Zoro announced as he started to walk out of the door and headed off into the dungeon mist.

"Kirito, you have proven yourself to be able to defeat me in the earlier duel. As without system assist, I would surely have lost. Thus I now entrust a special quest to you, you are to defeat Zoro! Asuna, you will take over the 'Knights of Blood', make sure to train before the next boss fight, Kirito will not be allowed into anymore boss battles until he has defeated Zoro. I bid you all farewell…"

In a flash of light, Kayaba was gone.

* * *

><p>Kayaba appeared in front of Zoro as he was wandering around in the mist.<p>

"Zoro, I know you wanted to look cool and all, but did you really have to go and get yourself lost for the sake of it?"

"Shut up, I'm not lost! The exit is just that way, watch!" Zoro pointed to his left and started running towards the right.

'Ugh why does such a powerful player have to have such a bad navigation sense.' Kayaba complained as he face-palm.

"System Command: Teleport Player to Home: Zoro ."

In a flash of light, Zoro was back to his arena home, with Kayaba next to him.

"I didn't need your help, but whatever, I'll go and train now, call me when the next fight is near."

* * *

><p>AN: Hello! I'm back from my vacation and now I bring you this chapter for the New Year! Hopefully it will be up to quality and was a good read. If you have any questions or suggestions I'll try to answer them if you contact me. Go review! I like reviews! I'll be working on my other story's next chapter now, so this will take awhile to be updated again.


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